Greetings,
The Biennial Volunteer Sign Up website is up and running and ready to take in volunteers! Please go to urj.org/biennialvolunteer and try it yourself. (I just signed myself up and then got a nice email thanking me for doing so!) You’ll see that at present, the site asks for first and last name, email, work and home phone, congregation (from a drop-down list of the 17 host congregations, Sha’are Shalom is one of them) and whether you’re mobility impaired.
Later in the fall, when people know their December schedules better, the committee will contact you by email and ask you to return to what will then be an expanded volunteer website. The expanded site will ask for your day and time preferences. The committee will use that information to make volunteer assignments.
As we begin the actual process of signing up our volunteers through the website, I’d like to address a few questions I’ve received from liaisons:
Q. I’ve compiled a list of the people in my congregation who want to volunteer. Should I send you (the LAC co-chairs) the list or tell those people to sign up on the website?
A. Please ask those people to sign up on the website, at urj.org/biennialvolunteer. The software allows us to sort by congregation, so we will be able to give you a list of who has signed up from your congregation. (Which means you can see who on your own list of interested volunteers still needs a friendly reminder to sign up.)
Q. Our temple board/havurah/brotherhood/softball team wants to volunteer together so they can carpool and spend the day together at the Biennial. How can they sign up for the same time slot?
A. Later in the fall, when we expand the website to ask volunteers for their day/time preferences, there will also be a box for notes. That is where individuals should list the other people they want to volunteer with. We will do our best to assign them all the same day and time.
Q. Can someone who volunteers on Friday attend the Friday evening Shabbat service at no cost, as long as he or she does not attend the Shabbat Dinner?
A. Yes. The service will be before dinner, and Friday volunteers are welcome to attend at no cost. (The only caveat is that a lot of people may want to volunteer on Friday for that reason, and we may not be able to accommodate all of them. So the only way to be certain that someone can attend the Shabbat service is for them to register to attend the full Biennial.)
Thanks again for your efforts to make this a great Biennial, and thanks for volunteering.
Jackie Schoch